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REVIEW: HOMEFRONT THE REVOLUTION (PS4, Xbox One, PC - PS4 Version TESTED)

22/5/2016

7 Comments

 
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Many years ago, as those of you who used to read my old blog might recall, I visited Chernobyl.

Alas, that's not quite as unique a claim as I wish it was. Shortly after I went there for a weekend, with my dad and a friend, games firms started sending all manner of journos for a visit; freebie trips to support various Chernobyl-set video games.

Ukrainian companies have been running tours for years, and - though the number of people allowed into the exclusion zone at any one time is limited - it's not exactly difficult to get in, should playing hopscotch with patches of contaminated moss be the sort of thing you think you might enjoy.

Pripyat - the abandoned city just a stone's throw from the iconic red-and-white chimney of the Chernobyl reactor - is every bit as eerie as you might expect; a decades-old Soviet time capsule, its skyscrapers and streets crumbling as nature reasserts itself. 

And yet Kiev - Ukraine's capital, and most adventure tourists' point of entry for a few days of radioactive whimsy -  is similarly strange. Like the rest of its country, the place felt like a setting for a video game; the grey, concrete slabs of housing, the splintered streets, the wild dogs and head crabs everywhere... More than once I thought it could've been a theme park dedicated to Half-Life 2's City 17, a place teetering on the precipice of turmoil.

Inevitably, Chernobyl has been the setting for more than one video game - most notably Modern Warfare - but also one of my favourite games of all time; the strange and atmospheric S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

So here's the good news: at its best, Homefront: The Revolution, with its crumbling buildings and piles of debris, reminded me of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. At its worst, it reminded me of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. running on an old 486 PC with 32mb of RAM. 
SO YOU SAY YOU WANT THE REVOLUTION
The Revolution continues where the unloved Homefront left off: slipping you into the breeches of a faceless, personality-devoid, revolutionary, fighting back against high-tech North Korean invaders, on US soil.

If you can get past the lazy xenophobia - playing right into the hands of those who want us to believe in mysterious foreign boogeymen - you'll discover that Homefront does exactly what you'd expect from a first-person shooter with such a backstory.

It borrows the Ubisoft model, by presenting you with a vast open world - in this instance post-invasion Philadelphia - tasking you with joining the resistance to take back the city one North Korean outpost at a time. So far so jingoistic and predictable, but there are elements at work in The Revolution which ensure this isn't a game so easily dismissed.

There's a neat weapons system, that allows you to customise your weaponry in the field. A crossbow, for instance, can be transformed into a flamethrower or a blunderbuss (of all things).

Also, the city is divided into various zones: red zones will be crawling with North Korean patrols, whereas yellow zones are where what's left of the civilian population lives (and thus your actions will require you to blend in, and engage in more subtle tactics of sabotage).
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PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION
When it works - yes, when it works - I was surprised how much I enjoyed The Revolution.

​The city is incredibly evocative, dripping with the sort of post-apocalyptic ruin that I can never get enough of.

There's a heavy atmosphere hanging over everything, with troops and drones patrolling the city, and airships scanning the ground with neon beams, torn straight from a 1980s sci-fi movie. At points, it felt like the future war Terminator game we've never had. Helped by some cunning AI, limited med packs, and the warren-like terrain, skirmishes are genuinely tense and unpredictable.

But that's where the positives end. So much about The Revolution feels unfinished, and a lot of the gameplay is undercooked, or half developed. Yes, you can stealth it up... but you can't hide bodies or stick to cover. Yes, you can ride a motorbike, but the landscape is so full of rubble that you can never quite let rip with the throttle.

Yes, lots of customisable weapons and great enemy AI, but the aiming feels off, and sometimes it's hard to know when you've been shot. 

Ok, huge environment. Unfortunately, most of the missions are basically variations on one basic idea.

Yes, it is, potentially, a compelling setting for a game, but the story is a virtually non-existent, vacuous hole of a narrative, without a single original or profound thing to say. ​Which wouldn't be a problem if you weren't forced to sit through dull cutscenes full of dull characters having conversations about things you don't really care about.

All of this pales, however, when it comes to the framerate - which lets down what would've otherwise been some great graphics. Apparently it's bad on PC and terrible on Xbox One - but I can confirm that it's almost catastrophic on PS4.​

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THE REVOLUTION SHOULD NOT BE TELEVISED
The developers have admitted that The Revolution's framerate is an issue, and are apparently working to release a patch that'll fix it... but as it stands this is a game that has been released with a major technical issue.

​Sometimes it's fine, but for vast swathes you'll be sluggishly moving through the world at 20fps or less.

The knock-on effect it has on the action can - at times - render the game unplayable. I cannot stress how big a problem it is. Plus there are the moments when everything freezes for a few seconds, while the autosave kicks in, adding insult to injury.

I read about other games with launch issues, and can often overlook them. I mean, I saw the bugs in Assassin's Creed Unity, but never encountered anything which killed them game for me. This is different.

Fundamentally, it shouldn't have been released until those framerate issues were fixed. You can almost excuse a developer not noticing a bug, but there's no way the framerate wasn't spotted prior to release. It's there in every moment, getting in the way. If your graphics engine is too demanding... then find a workaround. Gameplay should, ultimately, be the most important element of any game.

Had it not been for the above it might've been possible to overlook some of the other problems the game has, the general sense of it being rushed, or unpolished. Unfortunately, it just brings all of that into sharper relief. 

​And that's a shame - because there's some fine work here, and the makings of something quite decent, underneath all the stink. 

SUMMARY: Would you get into a car which didn't drive properly?
SCORE: -2 out of 100,000,014

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
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7 Comments
Superbeast 37
22/5/2016 01:25:57 pm

CDProjekt and Bethesda got away with it with Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 but Homefront doesn't have the name to carry it for a few weeks until it can be rectified.

I liked the look of this game but with those performance issues there was no way I was going to waste my money.

"IF" it get's fixed I might pick up a key later for a few peanuts.

I've no doubt this is a symptom of a fixed release date, all the marketing geared up around that date and despite working 18 hour days the devs just not being able to finish it off in time.

I'm afraid a lot of Publishers and Developers will have to get stung hard before this practice ends.

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Retro Resolution link
22/5/2016 02:51:43 pm

I agree with your conclusion; sad to say it's rife in software development of all kinds, not just games. A strange and unbidden hangover from the 70s stereotype of developers working insane hours 'because they love it'. Working for or with masochistic 'hero' coders is unpleasant to say the least.

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Retro Resolution link
22/5/2016 02:54:00 pm

...forgot to add: in my experience, in general the ultimate audience for the software is more likely to tolerate a delayed, functional, release than a broken, but on schedule, one.

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Superbeast 37
22/5/2016 06:57:05 pm

Absolutely.

I'd have bought it if it ran to an acceptable standard. I will buy it if it ever gets fixed but by then the price will be lower and the pub/dev has lost out.

I think they know that delays won't hurt sales unless it happens to shunt a less-established title into the big Oct/Nov games rush where it would be drowned out.

However a May v June release? Nah I don't think it is a big deal.

So to what extent is it a problem with marketing or manufacturing?

Do manufacturing slots have to be booked so far in advance? Same with marketing? How much flexibility is there?

On another note with regards to games that run so badly as to be defined as "broken", what is the situation with refunds of digital games on PS4/XO? Steam introduced such a service and I understood that was due to expected changes in EU law? I've not heard anything about console digital refunds?

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Chris W
22/5/2016 09:05:04 pm

This game is made by the studio that was formerly Crytek UK, which itself was formerly Timesplitters and Second Sight developer Free Radical Design. That studio was founded by members of Rare's Goldeneye 007 development team.

I won't be alone in having fond memories of those games. Free Radical supposedly got shafted by LucasArts who refused to invest in the marketing and distribution of Star Wars: Battlefront 3, sending them into administration.

They suffered further setbacks when THQ went bust and Crytek UK was closed down. I'd have loved to have seen them put out a great game but I suppose actually shipping a game, albeit to mixed reviews, is a step in the right direction. Putting it out when it doesn't run properly is a bad move though.

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Kelvin Green link
23/5/2016 04:19:48 pm

Oh, that is sad. Free Radical was responsible for some wonderful games.

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Chris
23/5/2016 11:25:11 pm

Pretty sure there's a game set in a carbon electronic copy of Pripyat, although it's not called that in the game of course.

Dunno what game though, probably one of those first person ones I can't stand.

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